The Escherichia coli biotin repressor, an allosteric transcriptional regulator, is activated for binding to the biotin operator by the small molecule biotinyl-5'-AMP. Results of combined thermodynamic, kinetic, and structural studies of the protein have revealed that corepressor binding results in disorder to order transitions in the protein monomer that facilitate tighter dimerization. The enhanced stability of the dimer leads to stabilization of the resulting biotin repressor-biotin operator complex. It is not clear, however, that the allosteric response in the system is transmitted solely through the protein-protein interface. In this work, the allosteric mechanism has been quantitatively probed by measuring the biotin operator binding and dimerization properties of three biotin repressor species: the apo or unliganded form, the biotin-bound form, and the holo or bio-5'-AMP-bound form. Comparisons of the pairwise differences in the bioO binding and dimerization energetics for the apo and holo species reveal that the enhanced DNA binding energetics resulting from adenylate binding track closely with the enhanced assembly energetics. However, when the results for repressor pairs that include the biotin-bound species are compared, no such equivalence is observed.

The genes encoding broadly HIV-1-neutralizing human monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) are highly divergent from their germ line counterparts. We have hypothesized that such high levels of somatic hypermutation could pose a challenge for elicitation of the broadly neutralizing (bn) Abs and that identification of less somatically mutated bn Abs may help in the design of effective vaccine immunogens. In a quest for such bn Abs, phage-and yeast-displayed antibody libraries, constructed using peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from a patient with bn serum containing Abs targeting the epitope of the bn MAb 2F5, were panned against peptides containing the 2F5 epitope and against the HIV-1 gp140 JR-FL . Two MAbs (m66 and m66.6) were identified; the more mutated variant (m66.6) exhibited higher HIV-1-neutralizing activity than m66, although it was weaker than 2F5 in a TZM-bl cell assay. Binding of both MAbs to gp41 alanine substitution mutant peptides required the DKW 664-666 core of the 2F5 epitope and two additional upstream residues (L 660,663 ). The MAbs have long (21-residue) heavy-chain third complementarity-determining regions (CDR-H3s), and m66.6 (but not m66) exhibited polyspecific reactivity to self-and non-self-antigens. Both m66 and m66.6 are significantly less divergent from their germ line Ab counterparts than 2F5-they have a total of 11 and 18 amino acid changes, respectively, from the closest VH and V germ line gene products compared to 25 for 2F5. These new MAbs could help explore the complex maturation pathways involved in broad neutralization and its relationship with auto-and polyreactivity and may aid design of vaccine immunogens and development of therapeutics against HIV-1 infection.

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